Ryan Griffis currently teaches new media art at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He often works under the name Temporary Travel Office and collaborates with many other writers, artists, activists and interesting people in the Midwest Radical Culture Corridor.The Temporary Travel Office produces a variety of services relating to tourism and technology aimed at exploring the non-rational connections existing between public and private spaces. The Travel Office has operated in a variety of locations, including Missouri, Chicago, Southern California and Norway.

This theory and action course highlights the culturally deviant, politically progressive potential of cooperation-enhancing technologies. Debates about online collaboration and social networking frequently focus solely on business. However, this class investigates political, culturally experimental, playful and deviant applications of these emerging contexts. 51 million Americans of all ages have contributed content such as blog entries, book reviews, mp3s, video, or podcasts online. This number contains 57% of all US teenagers, for example. The average European Internet user now spends 10 hours 15 minutes a week online. Artists use this huge participatory potential to create input-driven projects. But often rooms are opened and nobody comes to party. What are the needed incentives for people to participate? Videomakers use video blogs to create an offline audience for their tapes. Artists use blogs as portfolios and for day-to-day reflection. Art activist groups further their political agendas. Artists form social networks to create sustaining platforms for their work and ideas that are autonomous from art market resonance. Scholars such as Rheingold, Benkler, Florida, and Lovink argue that a creative cooperative proficiency is THE key competence for the next decade. After successful completion of this course you will have a deeper understanding of contemporary mediaspheres. You will be a competent and confident contributor to such contexts! And you will be empowered to fully benefit from online social networks that are relevant to you!

"From one company: 'The tremendous increase in demand for wireless towers has generated great opposition to the use of conventional, unconcealed structures. Both community and zoning requirements for high quality concealment are on the rise. Today, concealment issues may be the greatest obstacles to obtaining zoning approval. Preserved TreeScapes International's botanically correct tree tower products will help speed the approval process.'

[This is part of a weekly series written by Lawrence Lessig and
others about the history and future of Creative Commons. If you know others who might find these interesting,
please recommend they sign up at
http://creativecommons.org/about/lessigletter]

About two months ago, a friend asked:

I don't get what Creative Commons is, beyond a bunch of servers
serving up licenses to people around the world. Why would you need
support?

The question was completely understandable. Most who see us just see
us through our licenses. Yet there's a great deal more to what we're
doing. And my aim over the next few weeks is to describe that great
deal more.